GETTING INTO SUN

Puget Sound Energy plans solar power plant
December 4, 2006 (Bloomberg News via The Seattle Times)
- Puget Sound Energy, the state's biggest utility, is seeking proposals for construction of a 500-kilowatt solar-powered generating facility…near the site of the Wild Horse Wind Project under construction in eastern Washington…

- When the sun is shining, it will have the capacity to power 300 homes…That would roughly double the state's entire solar-powered electricity generation and be four times bigger than any solar facility now in existence in the Northwest.
- The Wild Horse wind farm will produce up to 230 megawatts in a strong breeze, or enough to supply about 184,000 typical homes…

Even Chavez is doing it:

Venezuela Takes Steps Towards Solar Energy
Michael Fox, November 29, 2006 (Venezuelaanalysis.com)

- Highlighting one of the first initiatives of the recently launched Mission Energy Revolution, 73 new solar-powered lamp posts were installed last week along Bolivar Avenue in downtown Caracas. Venezuela has plans to multiply the pilot project around the country…President Hugo Chavez…announced that he saw the solar panel project in action when he was in Vietnam and ordered Energy and Petroleum Minister, Rafael Ramirez to set it up in Venezuela…the Vietnamese are going to help Venezuela set up a solar panel manufacturing plant…
- [T]he Energy Ministry hopes that this particular initiative will also cut down on the common occurrence of electrical cable robbery from the country’s lampposts, for the resale of the used copper wires…
- The solar initiative is part of the new Energy Revolution Mission, which was launched on November 17th in the Venezuelan state of Nueva Esparta, with the goal of changing 52 million light bulbs across the country for energy-savers…by the end of December…they plan to have changed 17 million bulbs in six states…

By the way, why didn’t the Middle East oil powers do this a long time ago?